‘Taxi Driver’: A Look Back in Photographs

With the onslaught of e-readers, physical books are on the slow boat to extinction. On the flip side, they are also becoming incredibly collectible works of art (listen up, Art Basel). The point was illustrated last week at a book launch for “Taxi Driver: Photographs by Steve Schapiro” at Taschen Beverly Hills. While the crowd was small, attendees were serious film connoisseurs; guests included director Michael Mann and photographer Howard Bingham.

Schapiro, whose iconic photographs have graced the pages of Life Magazine, Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone, was on hand at the party to sign copies of his new book. The photographer — who also worked as a behind-the-scenes photographer on over 200 films — was on the set of “Taxi Driver” for about 10 weeks. He had free reign to shoot whatever he wanted, in that wonderful era before the shackling constraints of the publicity machine cuffed creativity and editorially stifled what would and would not see the light of day.

Paul Duncan, who has edited over 50 books for Taschen, said for him, Schapiro’s “Taxi Driver” photographs were one of those rare finds. “Having researched film material for so long, there are some films that everybody adores; so you’re always looking for photos, and ‘Taxi Driver’ is one of those films,” said Duncan. “But there are very few photos available. So when Steve pulled out 1,000 slides [to show me], I almost fell over. Then he showed me 80 rolls of film from the movie that he shot, that hadn’t ever been developed.”

“Taxi Driver” is a collection of never before seen photographs from the set of Scorsese’s masterpiece, starring Robert De Niro as psychopath Travis Bickle. The book is an oversized, limited edition of 1,200, with the first 200 art editions coming in at a whopping $2,000 apiece (at this writing it is well on its way to selling out).

Speakeasy spoke to Schapiro about the images contained in his book.

Some of the more violent images left us aghast.

You have realize two things: One, the only way you could really see the blood scenes is in this book because all the existing copies of the film had that taken out of them… The other thing that’s amazing about the film is just how Jodie Foster, at the age of 12, created an incredible characterization that mature actresses don’t come up with… and that was an extraordinary performance.

How did you end up working on the set?

I was a special photographer, and at that time, that was someone who was hired because not only they were a great photographer, but their connection to magazines was such that you had a good chance of placing those pictures in major magazines. So studios were anxious to have you work on the film because if they could get 6-8 pages in a major magazine, it was free advertising that was much less expensive for them. Today it’s very different –- the studio does a buyout early on and they own all the material and their handling is much more different than it was back then.

You own all this material?

Yes. The first teaser poster is made from a photograph that I took… But if they [the studio] weren’t going to use photos for advertising purposes, they never did a buyout.

I love magazines and books, but producing a high end book with beautiful photographs is a bit of a risky proposition.

I worked for Life, and I did an enormous amount of documentary [work]; I traveled with Bobby Kennedy, I did Haight-Ashbury, I did everything from poodles to presidents. I can only explain it by saying, when John F. Kennedy died, for three days, everyone was glued to television to watch it. But then they had to go out, to buy a copy of Life’s memorial issue, because they had to own history. So it’s very much like that; with a film that you like, it goes by so quickly, but this way you have it in front of you and you can spend time with it and see more of the individual moments. It creates an emotional flow like the old Life Magazines where you had an emotional sense that went through a story.

With this, you’re a book that isn’t ordinary in any way but extraordinary in every way.

You see in his character that there is an enormous disconnect –- he’s like a child when he tries to connect with Cybill Shephard or Jodie Foster. He stumbles. But you can see how the war affected him.

This may not be relevant, but Paul Schrader and Scorsese were deeply religious and at one point, each of them thought about becoming a minister or a priest. They saw this film as a ritual film, and almost as a religious film but in everyday terms. And in the end, a lot of people have asked what it meant when De Niro holds a gun to his head and it basically that he’s missed his martyrdom there.

I went to a lecture where Paul Schrader spoke at the Academy some years ago, where he said his character, Travis Bickle was a man who was incredibly lonely. He has people coming in and out of his cab all night, yet he still cannot connect.

Two things: Paul Schrader almost wrote the book autobiographically. He supposedly wrote the script in about 15 days, with a loaded gun on his desk.. I also feel that the relevance of Taxi Driver today is still very prominent. It came out at the end of the Vietnam War and Travis Bickle is a Special Forces Marine, he’s popping pills, and driving a taxi because he can’t sleep at night; he really likes guns. And today we have soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, and it’s really exactly the same situation. So I feel the movie has added relevance to today besides being a classic movie, it’s something we’re living through once more. And the violence is coming out once more as well.

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.